question, a friend asked me to come over today and block his kids pc (hard wired into router), xbox (wireless) and iphone from the network cause of bad grades. they have a Netgear WNDR4000 router and a Motorola SB6121 cable modem. i logged into the router and was just going to set up mac filters to block them but this router didn't have it. what is the best way to block certain devices. the parents still have there pc (wireless) and 2 iphones that need wifi access.

what's the best way to block these certain devices on this router and for the pc part could i set a policy to block that?

Wouldn't it be easier to just unplug the network cable from the PC to the router, or just confiscate the entire machine?
The kids would probably be able to bypass any blocking rules on the router. If this is punishment for poor grades
at school, I think physically removing the PC, or just the network cable, would be a better solution.

That, and changing the WiFi password so their XBox and iPhones can't go online. Or, confiscate those as well!

Checking the manual for the router, it looks like you can block services for specific IP addresses, which would work for you. If you check page 38/39 of the manual, it discusses setting up blocked services. Just deny TCP and UDP for the appropriate devices and that should block him from doing anything.

If you do that, note that you'll also need to reserve the IP addresses for his devices on the router so that DHCP doesn't assign a new one.

they have a Netgear WNDR4000 router and a Motorola SB6121 cable modem. i logged into the router and was just going to set up mac filters to block them but this router didn't have it.

While I agree that mac filtering is not the way to go for say a console game system, blocking internet does not prevent play. Same with phone, preventing wireless -- they can still use the phone. Removal of the device from their access is the better option - real difficult to put the phone in a draw, take the console power cord, etc.

But sorry that model clearly supports mac filtering - it took me all of 2.3 seconds to download the manual and search mac filter. Would looking at the manual been too much work?

Are you trying to say it doesn't support wired mac filtering? Not many devices do that.

But the device does support just basic firewall, so you could setup a reservation for their MAC so they get the same IP all the time and then just under content filtering block all the tcp and udp ports.. No internet for that IP